Trick-or-Treat!
by SugarCereal
Summary: Steven isn't sure what Halloween is all about but if there's candy involved, he wants in. That is, until Amethyst tells him about a dark horror lurking in Beach City. Can he face his fears for some delicious treats?
1. This is Halloween

**Chapter 1: This is Halloween**

The beach air is crisp and salty, the wind a bit sharp for the residual warmth. A little too cold for the typical beach-goers, but for regular like Steven, it's perfect. All he needs to do is convince Connie the same because right now she looks miserable, all scrunched and frowning.

"Come on in, the water's great!" He's standing a few feet from the shore, splashing his arms on the surface of the water.

Connie shields her face from the droplets of spray. "Um, I think I'll just stay in the tide." Her feet are buried in the sand, arms wrapped tight against her exposed legs. It has been weeks since she's been able to convince her parents to let her leave the confines of their suburban home for anything other than attending school or her lessons. She's wasted the last few weeks of decent weather worrying over study materials and sheet music, and now it's too cold to play outside.

"Suit yourself!" He takes a huge gulp of air and disappears beneath the water. A few minutes later, the top-half of a distinctly Steven-shaped dolphin—complete with a silly-looking tuft of brown hair where the blow-hole would be—explodes from the surface, kicking up a large wave that soaks the girl completely. He wiggles his flippers back and forth. "Look, I'm a…what did you say these were called again?"

"A dolphin. That's great, Steven." Connie says, annoyance edging into her tone. She pulls her dripping hair into a knot, wringing out as much of the ocean as she can.

"Isn't it cool? Amethyst taught me. I'm still not very good at it, though." The tide withdraws slightly and she can see what he means. On the bottom half of the dolphin is a human waist and legs—it's absolutely unnerving.

Connie scrunches her face. "That's terrifying! What if you get stuck like that?" Even though it's horrific, it's still impressive, Connie thinks. She shrugs away the thought, shivers, and instead calculates how long she's obligated to indulge in Steven's whims before complaining of catching a cold.

He stikes a pose in the water, fin on hip, feet staggered in an effortless-cool stance. "I think I'm…FINTASTIC." Just then, the wave that had been steadily building crashes down on his head, sweeping his feet out from under him.

Connie can't help but giggle, rolling her eyes at the terrible pun. At least she's no longer thinking about the cold biting at her flesh.

"I think it's time we headed back. If I get sick my mom will kill me." Five minutes is more than long enough.

"Aww, but I was having fun." A flash of pink and he's back to his actual self. "Does that mean you have to go home?"

"I can stay out a little later. It's a weekend after all. I know, let's warm up in front of the fire and talk about our Halloween costumes!"

"Hallowhat?"

"Halloween! You don't know what Halloween is?"

Steven's blank face tells her everything.


	2. The Dare

**Chapter 2: The Dare**

It's not _completely_ abnormal for children to be so detached from their culture, Connie reasons. It surely isn't true of socialized kids, kids without alien parents who dropped out of space one day and hermitted themselves away in a stone temple for thousands of years. But with Steven, nothing is normal.

It's possible the Gems simply avoided the custom because they didn't understand. Connie knew kids at school that were afraid of Halloween, shaped by their parents' beliefs, putting the fear of demons in their heads. She felt sorry for those kids, even if her parents incubated their own weirdo fears inside of her, about candy laced with razors or poison or strangers who wanted to steal her right off the street. Or like how they took her candy sack away and rationed out one piece a day so she wouldn't get fat. At least those things all made logical sense.

But the Gems aren't religious or scared of monsters, nor are they around to fill in any of the blanks in her mind.

* * *

It takes a few attempts, but with Connie's supervision—she isn't allowed to play with matches, even though Steven thinks lighting something that's meant to be lit shouldn't count as "playing"—, the fire crackles to life in the hearth. The duo wrap themselves in the fluffiest blankets they could find and settle as close to the heat as possible, a bag of Jumbo Fluff marshmallows wedged between them.

"So tell me about Halloween," Steven demands as soon as they are comfortable. She savors times like these, when her friend hangs off her every word as though they're magic. It makes her feel like how it must to be a human learning about simple-yet-important Gem stuff. Role reversal.

"Well…do people ever come to the door asking for candy?"

He thinks about it for a moment. "One time, this kid came to the door with a pillowcase and Amethyst turned into a big wolf monster and said she'd eat him if he didn't give her all his chocolate."

"Okay.."

"And then he started crying and ran away and Pearl got mad and threatened to put up the fence again."

"Uh huh." Connie makes a mental note to ask Amethyst about this later.

"Mallow?" Steven tips a charcoaled square in her direction.

"No thanks." She plucks a fresh white one from the bag and pops it into her mouth. _Gelatin is made from animal bones._ The sugary treat turns to ash in her mouth. She gulps hard.

"Halloween is when you dress up as something scary and go door-to-door asking for candy. It's believed to be derived from a Celtic festival honoring the spirits."

"You just go up to strangers and tell them to give you candy?"

"Yep. You go up and down the street looking for houses with their lights on, then knock on their door and say, 'Trick-or-Treat!' and they give you candy." And sometimes tricks, she doesn't say.

"Whaaaat?" Steven's eyes sparkle. "Why has no one told me about this before? I LOVE candy."

"I dunno," she shrugs. How is it possible that even his dad never took him trick-or-treating? "Maybe it's one of those weird Earth things the Gems don't know about."

"Let's do it! You and me. We'll be the spookiest candy fiends on the block." He watches her intently, shoving fistfuls of Jumbo Fluff into his mouth. They're so preoccupied, the fire crackling so peacefully, that the don't notice the kitchen door creak open. The sound of rustling takes them off guard causing Steven to jump back into Connie.

Amethyst is leaning in the doorway, a bag of chips in hand.

"Halloween huh? Don't you know that Beach City is haunted?" She digs her hand in the cellophane bag, making as much noise as possible. "Some say strange things happen when the sun goes down on Halloween night. And sometimes, the little kids turn up MISSING."

Connie scowls, her eyebrows knit into a severe v-shape. "That's just a silly myth. There's no such thing as…" she trails off, her face growing hot.

"Monsters?" Amethyst offers, a big cheesy smirk glued on her face.

"Not _those_ kinds of monsters, anyway," she grumbles under her breath.

Steven puffs up his chest. "I'm a Gem; I'm not afraid of no monsters."

"Oh yeah, prove it," Amethyst sneers, leaning in close and crunching hard on a chip for effect. "I dare you to go to the top of the abandoned lighthouse at midnight on Halloween. That's where that weird fry kid says the Wraith appears."

"The Wraith?" Steven reflexively pulls his blanket up to his eyeballs.

"An urban legend," Connie says quickly. "Made up by _Ronaldo_." His name is like sour candy on her tongue.

"Some say he's a faceless specter who roams the beach, looking for a face to steal. That's why everyone wears a mask—to trick him into thinking they're too ugly."

Connie laughs, a small, silly giggle at first that turns into hysterical waves that shake her whole body. "A face-stealing ghost? You can't seriously believe that. Why haven't there been police reports? Faceless people turning up missing?" Facts always trump irrational fears. Too bad rationality doesn't coexist reasonably in a world with Gem-wielding aliens.

"I don't want to lose my face!" Steven whimpers, shrinking down into the blankets until only his hair pokes out from the top. Images of him as a supermodel flash before his eyes, his perfectly chiseled face dissolving into a lump of pink flesh.

Connie wriggles her hand lose to wipe the tears now streaming from her face. If this is why the Gems have kept Halloween a secret from Steven, she can't wait to prove them wrong.

"Oh, it's real alright," Amethyst's voice is barely a whisper, her face wiped of any prior amusement. "I've seen him. I know Ronaldo is a spaz but when he's onto something, there's usually some truth to it." Steven whimpers from under the protection of his blankets, but Connie's resolve is strong. She won't be fooled, especially not by a notorious trickster like Amethyst.

"I don't believe you. We'll take you up on your dare under one condition: if we prove your wrong, you have to give up sweets for an entire year. No donuts, no pastries, nothing."

"Connie, noooo." Steven falls over, awaiting certain doom. No one notices his muffled protest.

"Oh ho, you got some guts. You're on, dude." Amethyst thrusts her hand out, and Connie clasps it fiercely.


	3. Nightfall

**Chapter 3: Nightfall**

"I don't see why we still have to make costumes just to go get scared on top of some hill." Steven wrestles a bolt of fabric with some dull scissors he found stashed away in the back of a drawer, his dream of overindulging in sweets dashed as quickly as it had come. Why did his adventures always have to revolve around hunting monsters? A night filling up on candy and passing out from a sugar coma would be a welcome break from Gem drama.

Connie carefully pokes a needle through her work-in-progress. "I already told you, we're still going trick-or-treating." The needle wriggles through the fabric and gets itself stuck. _Reading about sewing is not the same as sewing_ , she thinks. She sticks it in again, this time with more violence. "We just have to make sure we're at the lighthouse by midnight."

"I don't know, Connie. It sounds dangerous. I didn't think you were even allowed to stay out that late."

"That's why I told my mom that I'm staying at Sadie's house. Girl's night out. My parents think she's responsible because she's older and has a fulltime job." She sighs and puts down her work. "It'll be fine, I promise."

Steven isn't so sure, but he can't stand to disappoint his friend. He's never seen Connie so determined that she'd lie to her parents just to win a bet, but he wishes it had been over something less dangerous. Out of all the situations they could have gotten themselves into, she had to pick the one that had the potential to put her in harm's way. As much as he wanted to adventure with his friend, he couldn't get over the fear of losing her.

 _I wonder if this was how mom felt_ , he thinks.

He cuts the last strip of cloth and holds it up to better inspect it. "What do you think?"

"Ehh.." Connie starts to form words but stops.

"I'm no good at this," Steven says. "Oh, I know! I could always shapeshift."

 _And get stuck in the shape of some crazy monster? No thanks._ Connie thinks. "No, no! It's good. Just…let me make a few adjustments…"

* * *

Dark approaches fast. The streetlights are already lit as if to say _there's nothing to be afraid of here_. No faceless spooks. Not even masked ones. Connie scans the streets outside the temple window. Nothing but an eerie quiet.

Pearl's voice cuts through the silence. "I'm not sure about this… _Halloween_."

"Steven needs to have fun with his friends," Garnet says, armed crossed as usual.

"On All Hallow's Eve? Modern humans are so quick to forget the horrors of their past."

Connie begins to protest—something about superstition and religious reformation—when something dark and shadowy flits at the edge of her periphery. Craning around the tiny square window to get a better view, she catches a glimpse of a hooded figure running from the edge of the house. It darts out of view as it nears the main stretch of road leading to the farthest edge of the beach and toward the abandoned lighthouse.

 _Amethyst_ , she thinks. _I knew you were up to no good_.

Of course, she had never been worried. Connie had seen monsters. She'd watched her life flash before her eyes and lived to tell the tale. But out of all the Gems, Amethyst was the only one she couldn't quite read. Who knew what lengths she would go to in order to win a bet. Sugary foods were her livelihood, and as far as Connie was concerned, she'd probably kill before give them up for any length of time. Or at least inflict severely bodily harm.

"I'm ready! How do I look?" Steven bounds into the room wearing what looks like an over-sized bath robe robe and wielding a hunk of wood that had been painted black and silver.

"Ehh….like you're ready to take a bath?" Pearl offers. Garnet merely adjusts her glasses.

"I'm Lonely Blade! You know, the guy with the sword from those movies you guys watch with me."

"Yes," Garnet says. "You look exactly like a lonely blade."

Pearl plucks the piece of wood from Steven's grip and turns it around in her hands. "This is supposed to be a sword? Why don't you just carry Rose's sword?"

"Lonely Blade doesn't have a pink sword! Also, he uses a katana, not a sword." He snatches the makeshift katana back in a huff and stuffs it into the belt of his bathrobe. It hangs lazily before sliding to the floor with a loud smack.

"Maybe you should bring your mom's sword," Connie says, in a tone that's a little too hurried. "You know, in case of emergencies."

Steven pouts. "You said everything would be fine! We're just getting candy, right?"

 _Crap_. "It will be. That's why I said 'emergencies.'" She shifts her sash uncomfortably and reaches out a hand. "But you're right. We should get going before it gets too late."

Outside, the streets of Beach City are strangely deserted. The dim glow of the street lamps on the Boardwalk offer the only source of light for what feels like miles. The pair peek in their regular haunts only to be greeted by empty, dark storefronts. Even Funland is quiet.

"Where is everybody?" Steven asks, defeat creeping into his voice.

"In my neighborhood, there'd be kids everywhere." Connie tugs on the door of the Big Donut out of desperation. "Maybe the better candy is in suburban areas outside the city?"

"Haven't you heard?" The duo jump, startled by a husky, disembodied voice. A burly figure in a trench coat and trilby steps out of shadows. "This city is haunted by an ancient evil spirit that only comes out once a year. Some say the ghost has been haunting this beach ever since we settled here!" The figure makes a sweeping gesture to reveal his identity as none other than Ronaldo, keeper of all things weird in inexplicable in Beach City.

"Ugh, Ronaldo." Connie says, drawing out the syllables of his name as though chewing on something disgusting. "Do you always hide in dark alleyways just to creep people out?"

"Maybe. It was for dramatic effect!"

"Let me guess, this Wraith thing has scared everyone into hiding?"

"Yes!" Ronaldo seems ecstatic despite the bad news. "But I think it's a conspiracy! I think what's really out there is—"

"Haha, look at the time!" Connie grabs Steven by the arm and begins inching away, lying about imaginary curfews and the negative effects of staying up too late at night. Before Ronaldo has a chance to respond, they're jogging back toward the temple.

"Don't let the Wraith catch you without any candy!" he yells after them, his voice barely audible above the sea breeze and the crashing tides.


End file.
